


One Last Tragedy

by RaenUE



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Valla Doesn't Exist, Canon Rewrite, Gen, because (as has been demonstrated) I am physically incapable of shutting up, please read the a/n at the start of chapter 1 it explains all that you need to know to get into this, post-CQ!Credits scene, roughly half the wordcount is from a postscript dedicated to discussing this fic, should go without saying because of the title but this does not have a happy ending, vaguely canon compliant somehow??? fates canon is wack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-19 20:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16541921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaenUE/pseuds/RaenUE
Summary: Sometimes it’s easier if the truth remains hidden away.A 'canon rewrite' in some sense of the term, since it makes barely any (visible) changes up until this scene at the very end of the game. Takes place post-credits in Conquest.Please read the author's note at the start of the fic; it provides all the context for this that you'll need.





	1. Inconvenient Truths Lead To Convenient Lies

**Author's Note:**

> A ‘quick’ preface to give context to this piece since it’s different from what I usually write:
> 
> Long story short, I was gifted CQ last year and while I wrote at length about my thoughts on the gameplay elsewhere, instead of outright critiquing the plot, I figured it would be more fun (and constructive) to do a brief rewrite of the plot with an emphasis on changing as little as possible to retain what made Conquest (for better or for worse) what it was.
> 
> The primary goal with the rewrite was to make Conquest a standalone piece by removing its ties to Birthright and Revelations (which was where I felt most of the narrative problems came from). This amounted to completely cutting out Valla and Arkanos, which lead to me making a pretty significant alternate character reading that (I felt, at least) still fit within the context of the original game to make the events of the plot remain relatively unchanged.
> 
> As a direct result of that, the rewrite had a lot of things happening behind the scenes, so basically the entire plot from Corrin’s perspective remained unchanged. The wording of some stuff (like Avenger Takumi's dialogue) would get altered to be able to be read in more than one way and some visual effects would be altered to be able to be connected by perceptive players in order make this an ending that isn't a massive cop-out at actually setting up an engaging narrative, but the only really visible major change that is made is Corrin not getting shot by Avenger Takumi at the end of chapter 27 (in order to remove the 'talking to Mikoto, Takumi, and Ryoma's ghosts' scene). In order to make the rewrite actually manifest within the game itself, I added a post-credits scene in which the truth would be revealed followed by an ‘alignment choice’ that further explored the ramifications of the changes I had made.
> 
> Since I ended up satisfied with what I had outlined for the ending, this piece is me writing out that new scene as a fic. Chapter 2, 3 and 4 are each an alternate ending based on a choice the player makes, and ‘Chapter’ 5 will be metacommentary where I discuss the actual events of this rewrite and how it would be presented if it were actually part of Conquest, justify the pretty radical alternate character reading I made, and talk about the goals I had with both the rewrite as a whole and this post-credits scene.
> 
> **TL;DR: go into this under the assumption that it's immediately after Corrin talks to Azura's force ghost at the end of Conquest and Corrin was never shot by Avenger Takumi and as a result never spoke to Takumi/Ryoma/Mikoto's actual ghosts, and as far as you know nothing beyond that has been changed.**

Corrin let out a deep sigh and pushed himself up off the lakeside.

It had been too good to be true.

Azura, after disappearing following Takumi’s defeat, had reappeared before him after he stole himself away from massive party following Hinoka’s coronation.

They spoke for a moment, but almost as soon as she had appeared, she was gone.

“I turned down the liquor Izana tried to get me to drink, but maybe I had some by mistake…”

That Azura couldn’t have been real, could she?

After all, why would she reappear now of all times?

Corrin sighed again, and started back towards the party.

“Wait, my liege!” A familiar voice called out from behind Corrin, in the direction of the lake.

Corrin came to a halt and turned towards his most trusted retainer.

“Gunter, what are you-”

Corrin’s words stopped the moment he realized Gunter was not alone.

In fact, Gunter had a firm grip on Azura’s arm as he dragged her from the lake.

Corrin’s mind started to race as he tried to process the scene before him.

“Gunter, what- Azura, I thought you-”

Azura’s face was twisted in a grimace as she avoided making eye contact with Corrin.

“Gunter, you’re hurting her!”

Gunter ignored Corrin’s confusion and Azura’s distress, and spoke, his tone angrier than usual.

“If you want to tell your side of the story, young lady, I suggest you talk. I won’t embellish your tale in a way that flatters you.”

Azura wrested herself from Gunter’s grasp, but made no attempt to flee.

“I lied to you, Corrin.”

She continued to look away from him.

“About never seeing me again? I don’t- you’re here right now, so I don’t care abou-”

Azura scoffed, frustrated that Corrin still hadn’t figured out what she was talking about.

“Not just that, you idiot! I lied about everything!”

Corrin blinked, his confusion continuing to grow.

“I’m sorry?”

Azura remained silent.

Gunter, out of patience, spoke up again.

“She used you to kill Garon.”

“But he was a monster! His illusion wore off once he sat on the throne!”

“I spoke to Hinoka. The throne does that to anyone from outside of Hoshido’s royal family. Your father, despite acting like a monster, was no less human than you or me.”

Corrin didn’t know what to think, but Gunter didn’t give him a moment to before he continued his musings.

“I’m impressed, really. I was wondering how I could twist your unwillingness to accept his actions against him, but she managed to sweep in while I was out of commission and do it for me.”

“You were… impressed?”

Corrin’s heart continued to fall, taking the plunge deep into the depths of despair.

“I hated Garon with every fiber of my being. He had slain my family, and I dedicated my entire life to climbing the ranks to get close enough to kill him. I played the part of the perfect solider, I revealed my intentions to nobody, and what did I get for it? Hans by chance recognized me twenty years later, told Garon, and Garon decided it was time to make an example of me in front of you.”

Gunter let out a sad chuckle.

“Lilith couldn’t drag me to your castle yet since I lacked the blood of the dragons flowing through my veins, so I ended up falling into a far-off outrealm. I didn’t want to risk revealing to Garon that I survived, so I asked her to hide my fate from you until I recovered. Again, by sheer happenstance, Azura managed to lead you to the same outrealm I fell into around when I had finished my recovery, and we ended up leaving together. Azura, would you mind explaining why you went into that outrealm? I’m a bit fuzzy on the details.”

“The artifact I retrieved would just show you whatever I wanted to show you. I was desperate after my assassination attempt ended as nothing more than an attempt, but I was able to take advantage of a few things that I had learned of in Hoshido and your disbelief at his decision to kill all the dancers in Cyrkensia to get you to stop seeing him as your father. The ‘you mustn’t talk of this to anyone or else bad things will happen’ was a bit less of a lie in the sense that Garon wouldn’t have hesitated to cleave you in half, but you still fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I still can’t believe how easy to manipulate you were.”

“I can’t believe this!” Corrin yelled, shocked at the implication that the basis he used for justifying entering Hoshido was nothing more than one huge lie, “You-”

“That’s exactly the thing, Corrin,” Gunter interrupted, “You couldn’t believe that your beloved father would do all these terrible things, so you accepted the lie she fed you. It was easier for you to believe a convenient lie than it was to come to terms with an inconvenient truth. Garon was destroying this whole continent, and a lot of people, both in and out of Hoshido, wanted him dead for it. Azura was just the only one brash enough to act upon that desire.”

They stood in silence for a moment.

“Of course, that’s not all she did,” Gunter turned back to Azura, “Right, Azura?

Corrin’s stomach dropped even further, dreading the revelation that would come next.

“Corrin doesn’t need to know about that.”

“Are you sure? Do you think that you’ll be able to sing your way out of this? You need to accept responsibility for your actions.”

“I know that! I just-”

“You’re a terrible necromancer, Azura.”

Gunter’s voice was practically dripping with venom, with disdain, with utter hatred.

It took a moment for Corrin to realize what that entailed, but it dawned on him soon enough.

“Oh gods, you didn’t-”

“I did.”

Azura took a deep breath.

“It wasn’t just Takumi. When you were attacked once you returned to Hoshido and when…” Azura paused, fighting back tears, “And when your mother and my adoptive mother, the mother who was so kind to me after ripping me from my own home and still treated me as her own child but was truthful about my origins, not wanting me to live a lie, but still loved me as one of her own.. When you were attacked and Queen Mikoto died in your place, that was my fault.”

“You tried to kill me?”

The hair on Corrin’s neck stood on end, his discomfort mounting as the entire foundation of his relationship with one of his most trusted confidants fell apart.

“I lost control, Corrin! King Sumeragi’s corpse held a lot of resentment and it reacted in a way that I couldn’t have expected with the sword that you had, and it broke free! I was only trying to cause a small incident that would have the people push you back to Nohr, and send me back with you because that was the only way I could get close enough to Garon to kill him! I was just trying to get back into Nohr in a way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion and everything went wrong, Corrin! Do you think that I wanted to kill my mother?!”

“What happened with Takumi?”

“Eh?”

“Why did you try to possess Takumi? He was still alive when he was on the wall. I know that you lost control of him and that’s why he showed up after we…” Corrin winced as he trailed off, not wanting to finish that thought, “Why try to control him in the first place?”

“He figured out it was my fault and I needed him to be quiet so you didn’t back out right at the end. I didn’t want for everything that we had done to be for nothing. If he made my plan fall apart, all those deaths would have been for nothing.”

“And he jumped from the castle because…?”

“As far as I can tell, it was one last move to spite me.”

Azura let out a deep sigh, clearly burdened with regret upon regret.

“To be honest, I don’t blame him. I ruined his life, I destroyed everything he held dear.”

Azura, Gunter, and Corrin stood in silence for another moment.

“You’re a terrible assassin, Azura.”

“I’m acutely aware of that, Gunter,” anger returned to Azura’s voice, “Everything that could have gone wrong did. If I had succeeded in Cyrkensia then this all could have been avoided but I didn’t! I failed, so I needed to follow through on what I started. Garon had already launched the invasion of Hoshido and the best I could do was make sure we succeeded with as few casualties as possible.”

“Was it worth it?” Gunter was yelling, enraged at Azura’s apparent lack of remorse, “Was it worth killing your mother and almost all of your siblings over this?! What about all the Hoshidan and Nohrian soldiers that died in combat, the citizens that Garon steamrolled along the way!?!”

“You know I can’t answer that, Gunter! How can any of us know if letting Garon live would have led to more deaths?”

“Why did you run?” Corrin spoke up.

Gunter and Azura ceased their bickering for a moment to look at Corrin before hastily resuming.

“To avoid accepting the consequences of her actions, of-”

Corrin held up his hand to silence his retainer.

“No, Gunter, I want to hear it from her. Why did you run, Azura?”

“I… I didn’t want the truth to be known. I didn’t want to hurt your siblings or mine, or Hoshido and Nohr any more than I already have. If Garon died as a monster, as someone who has no longer a human, Nohr’s atrocities could be easily blamed on him, and these two countries could work towards coexistence easier than if it was known people willingly committed them. I don’t blame Nohr’s army for not rebelling against him, but Hoshido’s populace faced the brunt of his crimes and they might not be as forgiving. It was easier for you to kill him when you thought he was no longer your father, but do you want your siblings to have to confront that they killed their father in cold blood? Xander and Camilla may be able to come to terms with it, but what about Elise? And should Sakura and Hinoka know that their brothers were killed _just_ so we could kill Garon? I made a lot of mistakes along the way, yes, but running was never to absolve myself of the fate I earned. The truth of what happened would only leave wounds on this continent that would never heal, and I wanted to prevent that from happening any more than it already has.”

“Do you think that should excuse you from what you’ve done? You need to go on trial for at least two counts of regicide, and gods know what else you’ve been responsible for!”

“No. My actions were unforgivable, but they were necessary. Putting me on trial will only needlessly harm people who have already been hurt enough.”

“How much more do you think you could possibly hurt people, Azura? You’ve already left two countries in shambles, lead to the genocide of an entire race, and who knows what else! How much worse could you make things?”

“Gods, will you two shut up!”

Corrin yelled out, trying to process everything that had just been revealed to him.

“Gunter, you feel Azura should be put on trial?”

“Yes. However, I will support whatever decision you make regarding her ultimate fate.”

“And Azura, what do you feel I should do?”

Gunter grit his teeth at the suggestion that Azura’s wishes would be considered, but held his tongue.

“My only request is that the truth of this matter does not get out. Ultimately, that would mean that I’d prefer to not put on trial, but I’ve hurt you enough and if you would like to be my judge, jury, and executioner, then I will not object. I cannot make you un-learn the truth, but at the very least I can allow you to decide my fate.”

Corrin tried to shut out the world around him as he considered his options. Azura and Gunter, for their part, remained quiet and let Corrin think.

Azura had done… something very bad. It wasn’t easy to entertain the idea since even now he still loved at least the idea of his father, if not his father himself, but even if Azura was in the right for orchestrating Garon’s death, so many other things happened along the way that made it difficult to justify it as ‘the right thing’. Mikoto was killed, all the dancers were killed, for all he knew they were responsible for the extinction of the kitsune… there wasn’t a single step along the way where some tragedy hadn’t occurred by either Azura or Corrin’s own hands.

Letting Azura run free was out of the question, but what about placing her in exile? It might be too light a sentence, but it would serve to prevent the truth from getting out while still punishing her for her actions. She would spend the remainder of her years isolated, and that would be how she would atone.

On the other hand, Azura had hurt plenty of other people, and Corrin couldn’t ever decide on their behalf if exile was the appropriate course of action. The only way to bring her to justice would be to take put her on trial. Azura was right about the truth bringing Corrin far more pain than simply not knowing would have, but could that really be enough reason to avoid due process? Was shielding victims from even more pain really justification for letting someone avoid the punishment their victims would give them?

But something about Azura’s wording stuck in Corrin’s mind.

The amount of damage caused to Hoshido and to Nohr by this war, regardless of how they managed to rebuild in the coming years, was impossible to measure. If Azura went on trial, even just for the two counts of regicide, Corrin couldn’t imagine that she’d get off with anything less than execution. If that was her ultimate fate, the fate the people would choose for her, was there even a need to put her on trial?

If she was going to be killed, why go through the trouble of revealing the truth to everyone? Gunter and Corrin would never be freed from being burdened by the knowledge that they had destroyed another nation solely to kill a single man, but if they could avoid sharing that burden with everyone else, why shouldn’t they?

Corrin didn’t like the taste the idea left in his mouth, but, as the person who gave Azura the means to spark this war, shouldn’t he accept responsibility for allowing her to do this?

Isn’t he alone obligated to be Azura’s judge, jury, and executioner?

It hurt to even think about, to entertain the thought, but couldn’t Corrin avoid sharing this painful truth with everyone else and punish Azura in one fell swoop?

Corrin continued to weigh his options. Bringing Azura’s actions to light was the ‘just’ course of action, but was it the correct one? But putting her in exile in exile was a problem too, because Corrin would be willfully allowing her to live despite all that she had done. It was still a punishment, but was it anywhere close to enough for what she had done?

Having arrived at his answer, Corrin opened his eyes.

Azura and Gunter were still standing there, awaiting Corrin’s verdict.

“This wasn’t an easy choice to make, but I’ve decided to…”

> “…Place Azura in exile.”

> “…Put Azura on trial.”

Or…

> “…Let the truth die here.”


	2. Exile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corrin has chosen to put Azura in exile.

“This wasn’t an easy choice to make, but I’ve decided to place Azura in exile.”

Gunter’s scowl deepened, but Azura didn’t react.

“Gunter, will you stay here with Azura for now? I would like to seek council from a third party on how to carry this out, but I nonetheless would like to hide Azura from prying eyes as soon as possible.”

“If he had survived the war, ask Hinoka to direct you to Yukimura. Of all the people in Hoshido, he would probably have figured out the truth by now, and even if he hasn’t, he would understand the need for discretion. As a skilled mechanist, he may also be able to provide puppets that would keep me from escaping, if that was a concern.”

Corrin let out a sigh.

“Azura, I understand that you are serious about this, but it’s not your place to determine how your sentence will be carried out. Gunter, you’re more familiar with the people of this land than I am; is there anyone you would be able to trust?”

“Of the people that you’ve met so far, Fuga would likely be your best bet for someone who would be impartial and take it seriously. Felicia mentioned that you met with her father, but in the Ice Tribe has always rejected Garon’s rule and I am concerned that they would give her refuge instead. Izana would be out of the question, for reasons I don’t feel I should need to explain. I _have_ heard word of Yukimura’s political and mechanical greatness, as he quite the thorn in Garon’s side for years, but as Hoshido was the primary victim of this war, he’d want to bring her to trial as well, if not kill her on the spot.”

“Then I will arrange for a meeting with Chief Fuga of the Wind Tribe. He should be at the party, so I may be back as soon as tonight.”

“Party?” Azura asked.

“Hinoka was coronated earlier today. You were right about Nohr and Hoshido rebuilding together, at least.”

“I’m sorry to sour the mood for you, Corrin.”

Corrin let out a bitter laugh.

“It’s a bit late for apologies, Azura,” he turned to Gunter, “I’ll be back as soon as I can be, Gunter. Should I meet you here?”

“I’ll hide in the outrealm within the lake with Azura. When you’re ready, we’ll be there.”

“Until we meet again, then.”

* * *

 

Corrin sought out Fuga, barely catching him as he was leaving the party with Hayato.

“Ah, Corrin, how are you?” Fuga smiled, in good spirits after such a festive party.

“I’ve been better,” Corrin sighed.

“I’ve heard about Azura-” Hayato said.

Corrin tensed up, panic that word had already gotten out. Fuga raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“-But I’m sure you’ll see her again!” Hayato hastily added on, not realizing that that day had already come.

“Ah, maybe someday…”

“Is something bothering you, my boy? Your siblings were wondering where you had gone for so long,” Fuga’s age made it child’s play to pick up on the fact that Corrin was, in fact, deeply upset and trying incredibly hard to hide it.

“Actually, I’m sorry to ask this of you on such an occasion, but I’m looking for your advice on something.”

“On what?

“I’m sorry, this is still somewhat sudden for me so I’m not exactly sure how I should word this, but I’m seeking guidance from you as a… neutral party in the conflict that ended a few months back.”

“Oh,” Fuga’s smile disappeared as the weight of the issue that plagued Corrin became obvious, “Hayato, leave us for now; I’ll seek you out when I’m ready to go.”

“Sure thing.”

“Actually, Hayato,” Corrin stopped Hayato’s hasty retreat, “If you wouldn’t mind, could you tell my siblings that I’ll be heading back to Nohr with Gunter? If they ask why, tell them that I had urgent matters to handle, and nothing else.”

“You can count on me!”

“Oh, and if possible can you speak to Leo alone? He’d know to relay my message in a way that would satisfy everyone else.”

“…Anything else?” Hayato was waiting for Corrin to stop him again before he continued walking away.

“No that’s it. Thank you.”

“No problem!”

Fuga and Corrin watched Hayato leave the room, and Fuga turned back to Corrin.

“If you’d like someplace more private to speak, there’s a lake to the south of the castle.”

“That was actually where I was intending to head.”

* * *

The walk over was quiet and awkward, but Fuga was understanding of Corrin’s desire to keep this conversation far from the ears of those who might share what they would hear.

The lakeside was as deserted as always, and by the time they arrived it was a few hours past nightfall. The moon reflected off of the mirror-like surface of the lake, bathing the two in an silvery, melancholic ambient light.

“I’m unsure of what the exact circumstances for you were, but I know conquering Hoshido must have been hard for you. You seem like a very empathetic person, and that was probably at odds with most anything Garon would have commanded of you.”

“That’s… partially what this is about.”

“I’ll need you to elaborate before I can offer any advice.”

“I’m sorry, this is just…” Corrin collapsed to the ground, sobbing, “Gods, I can’t believe it was all a lie, that she used me to kill father, that they all-”

Fuga’s demeanor shifted subtly upon seeing Corrin break down. He lowered himself so he was sitting next to Corrin and placed a hand on his back, steadying the young man.

“Woah, woah, slow down there for a moment, Corrin. If you walk me though what’s going on, it might help you sort through your thoughts.”

Corrin’s babbling slowed as he looked at Fuga, and eventually the sobbing stopped. Fuga gave Corrin all the time he needed to calm down and, eventually, Corrin started to recount all that had been revealed to him by Gunter and Azura. That Azura had been using him to kill his father, that his father had still been human all along; he said it all, and Fuga listened.

“-and it’s just… I feel like garbage, for allowing all this to happen, for letting so many people die because I didn’t realize what was going on around me.”

“Corrin, I understand where you’re coming from, but it’s not something anybody really had control over-”

“That’s the thing! When father would tell me to do all those awful things, the worst part was the feeling that I wasn’t in control, that I had no choice in the matter, and this just that but a million times worse! If I had just a little more self-awareness, if I was just a little less of a child, if father hadn’t locked me up in that tower and I was able to experience the realities of this world a little bit earlier maybe I’d have known to question what Azura was doing, or questioned Father and been able to prevent the war somehow, or worked with her to stop him, or been able to make some sort of difference!”

“I don’t really have much to say aside from the fact that even if time does not heal these wounds, it will at least numb your pain. You’ve gone through something terrible, something I could never hope to comprehend, and dwelling on how things could have gone differently is just going to make it hurt more. Sometimes we’re are put in tough situations, and all we can do is make the best of the hand we’ve been dealt, and for what it’s worth, I think you did all that you could. You’re a good person, Corrin, and life was just… indescribably cruel to you.”

They sat in silence of a moment.

“That aside, you’d like advice on how to exile Azura?”

“Yeah.”

“One option is just to confine her to an outrealm or other far-off location people rarely travel to, but it would require a significant amount of resources to ensure she stays there and that wouldn’t be easy to cover up. Another is to confine her somewhere close to you so you’d be able to check up on her often, but you’d risk your siblings finding out and the truth getting out.”

“Neither of those sound like they’d be great ideas.”

“Exactly, which is why I’m going to propose this to you, Corrin. I respect your determination to do what is right, and, if you’d allow, we can confine her in our village. There are many cliffs that she could be hidden within, and as chieftain, I can ensure that she is taken care of in secrecy.”

“I’m appreciative of the offer, but wouldn’t that break your country’s neutrality? I don’t want to bring any more-”

“Corrin, as a neutral party we’d be the best suited to ensuring that her sentence isn’t ended prematurely. I need you to understand that sometimes neutrality isn’t an option, and as chieftain I have the authority to decide when we have to take a side. Me making this offer is final, but if you’re going to reject it you’re going to have to determine how else to exile her.”

“I’m… I’m sorry, I forgot how close you were to my father, and her using his body for-”

“Oh, that? If anything, it’s all the more reason to keep her alive. Sumeragi is probably in the afterlife, waiting for to chew her out for doing that, but he’d be just as mad if I throw all the responsibility of dealing with her onto him. So, what do you say?”

Corrin thought about it for a moment.

“Azura will be put in exile in the Wind Tribe Village, effective immediately, and I am deeply appreciative of their offer.”

“That’s the spirit!” Fuga slapped Corrin on the back with more force than was probably needed and stood up, “So, where is she?”.

“I’ll go get her.”

Corrin entered the lake and retrieved Azura and Gunter. Upon returning, he explained to them what he and Fuga had come to an agreement on, and they agree to set out in a few hours to avoid anyone who may be leaving the party late.

When the time came, they retrieved Hayato and set off.

* * *

The journey to the wind village was awkward, but uneventful. They arrived just before daybreak, the sky beginning to lighten on the horizon. The steep cliffs cast long shadows along the outcroppings they used to reach a room carved into the cliff face that sat on the edge of the village.

“Azura, this is where your sentence will be carried out. I will personally deliver your meals to you, and ensure this remains unknown to all but myself and Hayato. Should you outlive me, Hayato will oversee the remainder of your sentence. Are there any questions?”

“Will guard be posted?” Gunter asked.

“No. The door is to be locked at all times, and this area has been used for a similar purpose before, so the rest of our folk will avoid it out of habit.”

Gunter’s scowl deepened.

“How will you ensure she does not… end her sentence early?”

“I will see my sentence out to the end, Gunter,” Azura sighed, tired of Gunter’s continuing distrust but conceding that he’s not in the wrong for doubting her, “Your distrust of me is understandable, but I’ve had every opportunity to end my life in the months since the war ended. Even within the trip over here, there was plenty of chances for me to throw myself off of a bridge or to grab the knife you keep in your pack. Do you not believe that I don’t want to hurt Corrin more than I already have?”

Corrin winced at the thought that Azura was doing anything on his behalf.

“Corrin?” Fuga turned to him, “Any objections?”

“…No, I’m… fine with that.”

He wasn’t. At all.

“Then this will be where we part.”

Fuga unlocked the door, and Azura began to follow him into the room beyond.

“Azura…”

She stopped, turning to face Corrin.

“I may one day come to understand why you had done this. If the world were to learn of what you had done, future generations may laud you as a hero who had made an immeasurable amount of sacrifices in the name of the greater good, but you’ve hurt countless people along the way and to them and the people they’ve left behind, you’d be little more than a cold-blooded monster.”

Corrin pinched his brow, his voice raising in volume.

“I trusted you, Azura. I trusted you, and you took advantage of me. You didn’t ask for my help, you didn’t try to explain your intentions to me, you just took control of everything and it made everything fall apart. You didn’t trust me to understand, you didn’t try to make me understand what you felt needed to be done. I wish this wasn’t how our story ended, but you’ve taught me that sometimes things are outside of our control. You’ve hurt me in a way words couldn’t ever describe and the only way I’m going to begin to recover is by letting go of you.”

Corrin turned away from Azura. He felt like garbage, and as much as he didn’t want to let her be hidden away in a remote village, he couldn’t justify sharing this feeling, this sense of vileness that permeated every inch of his body with others.

He spoke his final words to her, in just above a whisper.

“I don’t know if we could have done better, but I know this could have ended in some other way. Goodbye, Azura.”


	3. Judgement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corrin has chosen to bring Azura to trial for her crimes.

“This wasn’t an easy choice to make, but I’ve decided to put Azura on trial.”

Azura did not sigh in frustration, did not change her expression. She just stood there, stoic as always.

“If that is what you wish, I will not object.”

For his part, Gunter did not react either.

“Gunter, do you have a suggestion for how we could do this? I’m, for better or for worse, unfamiliar with how war crimes are handled.”

“Typically they are brought to trial in the country they committed these crimes against, but since there are multiple victims in this case it may be best to seek out a third party to oversee the trial.”

“Izana seemed… unreliable for matters such as this, but do you think Fuga would be a wise choice? He was friends with my birth father, but I do not know him well enough to say for sure.”

“As a sovereign nation under Hoshidian rule, part of me wants to say that he’d be unable to remain neutral, but in the war the Wind Tribe had remained uninvolved so I’m inclined to say he may be the best option we have.”

Corrin looked at the sky, briefly checking the time.

“He may still be at the party; I’ll speak to him and be back within the hour.”

Corrin left in a hurry, leaving Azura’s question of ‘what party’ to fall upon deaf ears.

* * *

 

Corrin was able to find Fuga without issue. After a discussion, they came to the agreement that the Wind Tribe would hold Azura until a trial would be held at a later date, after Hoshido and Nohr had regained the stability they had prior to the war.

In the meantime, Corrin’s emotional state worsened as the guilt and grief slowly ate away at him. He refused to leave his room, often skipped meals, and barely spoke to anyone. His siblings worried, concerned that he was unwilling to share his woes with them. They pressed Gunter, the only person who had been with him when he returned to the party, but he remained steadfast in his loyalty to his liege and only told them that they would know why when the time was right. Felica, Jakob, and Flora had been likewise left out of the loop, but they gave Corrin the space they felt he needed, and could do little more than hope he would begin to recover.

A few months later, they, Hinoka and Sakura, and the rest of the world found out the truth.

Corrin did not attend the trial.

His siblings did not know how to approach the subject of Corrin’s trauma; what they had all gone through was distinctly different from Corrin.

They had years to come to terms with the atrocities that Garon had committed, but Corrin had been locked away in a castle and had all the horrors of the outside world thrust upon him in quick succession. They had years to come to terms with the lack of control they had over Garon, but Corrin’s idealistic view of his father had been shattered and he had a few short months to pick up the pieces and figure out a way to figure out how he truly felt about his father.

And, of course, none of them had been the one manipulated by Azura.

None of them had been entrusted with the invasion of Hoshido.

None of them had been the one to land the final blow on their beloved father.

Weeks passed before any of them tried to discuss the subject with him.

Weeks passed where castle Krackenburg was eerily silent.

Weeks passed where Corrin was plagued by the effect his choice must have had on his siblings, the effect that the knowledge that hurt him so much had now spread across the world.

The days blended together, and eventually, Corrin just stopped consciously feeling. The pain was too much, and it was easier to just let it happen, to pretend it wasn’t out of the ordinary, to tell himself that it wasn’t something that could ever change and that he’d just get used to it.

At some point, someone knocked on Corrin’s door.

“Corrin, is it alright if I come in?” Camilla voice called out.

Corrin didn’t respond. She took his silence as a yes, and entered.

Corrin was buried under countless blankets on his bed. His body, like his mind, was numb, and he made no protest to Camilla sitting on the edge of his bed.

She rested there for a while, giving Corrin time to acclimate to her presence.

“I can’t understand what you’re feeling right now, Corrin.”

Camilla sighed.

“I don’t mean that in the sense that I don’t know that you’re hurting, but you’ve gone through a lot in such a short period of time, and I can only imagine how much it hurts you, Corrin.”

She continued to speak.

“I don’t want you to be suffering like this. None of us do, Corrin. But I don’t know what I should tell you. I don’t know what I could say to help you.”

Another sigh.

"But something that this experience has taught me is that if I don’t try, nothing is going to change.”

Yet another sigh.

“A lot of bad things have happened, but I don’t think anybody blames you, both here or in Hoshido. We all knew father was doing these terrible things, and we were just too afraid to try to oppose him. He… was still our father, and because we had seen him descend to that point of madness, it probably made it harder to admit that he needed to be stopped. That he was someone we should have at least tried to stop.”

Camilla paused, before adding an addendum to what she just said.

“I don’t want to make it sound like Azura had done the right thing, but she had done something that, deep down, we all knew was going to happen some day and in some sense we all knew needed to happen. But if she had tried to discuss things with us properly, maybe we could have avoided all of this tragedy.”

Once again, another sigh.

“I spoke with Gunter about this, and he explained the choice you were given. I don’t know what I would have decided in your position, but you made the choice to reveal the truth.”

Camilla paused as she gathered her thoughts.

“I think you made the right choice, Corrin. It wasn’t an easy choice, but I think that you’ve made the best of the situation you were put in. Hiding her, hiding the truth away would have prevented people from being harmed in the short term, but in the long term I don’t think it would have helped. It’s important for us -for myself, Xander, and Leo- to admit that we had allowed Garon, Hans, and Iago to do these things. We may not have been able to stop him, but we didn’t try to, and it’s important that we take responsibility for enabling him like that. Even though this personally causes us distress, it will let us grow into better leaders of this country we’ve been left because it’ll be a reminder that we need to hold ourselves accountable. We’ll all eventually grow past this trauma, but we wouldn’t have been able to learn from it if you hid it away from us.”

She paused again, thinking of what to say next.

“You’re a good person, Corrin, and I think that’s why this is hurting you so much. I want you to know that even after all you’ve been through, and all that you feel you’re to blame for, we’ll always love you. You didn’t willfully do anything wrong, and I think that’s what counts.”

She got up from the bed and slowly walked to the door.

“Back in Cheve, when father ordered us to suppress the rebellion and you objected to how Hans went about that, I told you there wasn’t anything we could do... I regret doing that. Of all the things that happened, that’s what I regret the most. You came to me for help, and I told you nothing could be done. You trusted me, and I betrayed you.”

She let out a deep sigh, leaning on the door frame.

“I want you to know that, when you’re ready, this time we’ll all be here for you. You’re our brother, and nothing that’s happened will ever chance that.”


	4. Judge, Jury, and Executioner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corrin has made a difficult choice.

“This wasn’t an easy choice to make, but I’ve decided to let the truth die here.”

Corrin detached Yato from his hip, his voice trembling as he raised it above his head.

Azura flinched, but otherwise gave no indication that she was aware of what Corrin meant, as indifferent to her surroundings as ever.

“Azura, princess of both Nohr and Hoshido, you are charged with the crimes of espionage, genocide, and at least two counts of regicide, among many other unforgivable acts,” Corrin lowed Yato so it was pointed at the singer before him, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Please don’t let me hurt you any more than I already have, Corrin. You don’t have to do this,” emotion crept back into Azura’s voice, “It doesn’t have to be you who does this!”

“As much as it pains me to say it, she’s right, my liege. Allow me to-”

“No!” Corrin shouted, his blade unsteady in his grip, “I allowed this to happen, I allowed you to convince me to kill father, and my mother, and all those kitsune, and, and-”

Corrin broke down, sobbing as he collapsed to the ground.

Azara and Gunter both rushed to his side.

“Get away! Both of you!” Corrin screamed, swinging his arm to push them away, “Both of you wanted father dead! Both of you were ready to use me to kill him!”

“Corrin,” Azura objected, “Gunter hasn’t done anything wrong, he-”

“You’re in no to position to talk, Azura! How many people do you think died because of this war?! How many lives did you ruin?! Do you really think you’re any better than my father?! How are you any less of a monster?!”

Corrin’s words pierced Azura like a knife.

“You’re right, Corrin. If this is what you want-”

“It’s not what I want, Azura! I wanted none of this! I didn’t want to invade Hoshido! I didn’t want to kill my father! I don’t want to have to kill you! But you’ve put me in this position! You’ve forced this responsibility onto me! Do you not get that, Azura?! Do you not get that you’ve destroyed everything I’ve ever cared about?!”

Gunter and Azura remained silent, allowing Corrin to release everything he had held back before.

“Knowing this has torn me apart, Azura! Everything I did, all those terrible things I was able to justify was founded upon one great big lie! Why couldn’t you have left me alone?! Why couldn’t you have succeeded?! Why did it have to be me who you used?! Why, Azura? Why?”

“Gunter, please.”

“NO!” Corrin screamed, bringing his sobs to a halt as his panic overrode his despair, “It has to be me, it can’t, it can’t be anyone else.”

“Corrin, killing me won’t make you feel better. There’s going to be no moment of release, no sense of satisfaction for you.”

“Nothing’s going to make me feel better,” Corrin pushed himself off the ground, sword in hand, “Why can’t you understand this? Are you trying to hurt me more?”

“No, Corrin, of course not! I just don’t want you to do something in the heat of the moment that you’ll regret later. I’m fine with you killing me if you think that’s the right choice, but you’re not in any state of mind to make that decision right now.”

“Is that a joke?!” Corrin’s throat started to burn from yelling for so long, “How could you expect me to be calm right now?!”

Gunter moved between the two teens, shielding Azura with his body.

“She has a point, my liege.”

“Stand down, Gunter.”

Corrin’s voice dripped with rage, with hatred, with utter, primal anger.

“I will not allow you to make this choice right now, sir.”

“I SAID STAND DOWN!” Corrin roared as he charged at the veteran knight.

Corrin’s rage dulled the skills he honed during the war, and he was no match for Gunter’s countless years of experience and level head. Gunter effortlessly knocked away Yato and pushed Corrin back to the ground. The impact knocked the wind out of Corrin, stunning him long enough for Gunter to talk.

“I’m speaking from experience here, Corrin. Killing people in anger in the name of justice is not justice; it’s nothing more than revenge. You want to make the right choice, I know you do, Corrin, but you can’t make that choice right now. If this is the path you’ve chosen to go down I’ll support you, but right now you’re blinded by rage and I cannot allow you to do this.”

“I DON’T CARE!”

Corrin got up again, screaming and charged at Gunter.

Unsurprisingly, that strategy hadn’t become any more effective in the previous 30 seconds, so Gunter was able to cleanly hit Corrin with the handle of his polearm, knocking him out cold.

\----

The momentary loss of consciousness was enough for Corrin to calm down to the point where he was able to process his thoughts, and upon waking was able to restrain himself long enough to calm down to the point where he wasn’t throwing himself at Azura.

He noticed that they were no longer on the lakeside, and asked Gunter where they were.

“We’re in the outrealm Azura had hidden in, away from prying eyes.”

Corrin let out a tired laugh.

“What would I ever do without you?”

He pushed himself up off the ground he had been placed on and looked around. Gunter stood a few meters away, and Azura was sitting on a rock a stone’s throw away from him.

Both looked fatigued beyond belief.

“Have you had time to think things through?”

“Yes… I’m calmer now and my answer hasn’t changed.”

“Corrin, I’d like you to reconsider.”

“I see your response hasn’t changed either, Gunter.”

“I’ve already said this,” Azura sighed, “but you’re not going to enjoy it. If this is what you wan- if this is what you feel this is the best choice, I won’t stop you, but please, consider letting Gunter do it on your behalf.”

“And I meant what I said before. I get that you don’t want to hurt me any more than you already have, but it’s too late to take these things back. If I can bear this horrible truth on my own, if I can shield everyone else from knowing what we had done? That’s the best I can ask for right now.”

Corrin looked to the side, trying to hide his discomfort with what he felt he needed to do.

“I don’t like killing people, and I know I won’t take any joy in this. But maybe, just maybe, the act of bringing a close to this war, to this chain of tragedies in such a viscerally repugnant way will allow the finality of it to eventually sink in. Maybe this will be the way that I can start to understand what happened, what went wrong.”

Corrin once again detached Yato from his hip.

“It’s not something I’ll ever know the right answer to, it’s not something I’ll be able to do over, but it’s the best guess I can make right now.”

He let out a long sigh.

“I'm prepared to face the consequences of that, and that’s why it has to be me.”

Azura and Gunter stared at Corrin for a moment.

“I apologize for underestimating your resolve, my liege.”

Azura stood up without saying a word and walked over, standing in front of Corrin.

Her silence conveyed how ready she was to accept her fate more than any words could.

Corrin raised his blade again, this time holding it steady as he pointed it at Azura.

“Princess Azura of Nohr and Hoshido, you are charged with the crimes of murder by proxy, espionage, genocide, at least two counts of regicide, and multiple counts of treason, among many other heinous acts. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Corrin felt no better than he had the last time he had done this, but a clear head allowed him to maintain the composure he needed to follow through.

“My motivations may have been noble in my eyes, but the end result is undeniably unforgivable. I plead guilty on all counts.”

“The court then sentences you to death.”

Azura said nothing, but her eyes seemed to be saying that she was sorry. That she wished she could apologize but knew it would only make it harder for Corrin if she did.

Yato grew heavy in Corrin’s hands, heavier than it had ever been before as he raised it above his head.

* * *

It was over quickly.

All strength left Corrin’s legs as he fell to the ground, sobbing.

She was right.

It didn’t feel good.

It made him feel sick.

But at least now it was over.

All of it, every terrible thing that had happened, had now come to an end.


	5. Analysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The part where I talk your ear off.

I’ve discussed my motivations for doing this already but to recap: I was less disappointed with Conquest than I expected to be, but given that I felt it could be improved I wanted to talk about my problems with its story. The issue with doing that was that I didn’t really dislike Conquest as a standalone experience and “here’s why Fates sucked, sucks, and will always suck: the essay” has been done a million times before and it’d be boring for me to write and for you to read and would only lead to questions like “well how would you do it differently?” and “why don’t you just make your own game?”

Ignoring the inanity of the concept of games being the kind of thing someone can just spew out in response to whatever they’re dissatisfied with and not something that takes years of time to develop the skills needed to create and even more years to actually follow through on completing, I decided to cut out that entire exchange and just show you how I would do it differently.

 

As I just said, I didn’t and still don’t really feel that Conquest as a _standalone_ experience is impossible to redeem or even ‘that bad’, so I decided to have primary goals of:

1) Change as little as possible while improving the coherency of the narrative (including making as few changes to the gameplay as possible)

2) Alter the ending from ‘wow, everything is alright in the world, don’t worry about how we got to this point’ to something that provides closure/resolution (for both Corrin and the player) to the pretty major plot events of ‘Garon, Mikoto, Takumi, and Ryoma are dead and you are at least indirectly responsible if not directly responsible for their deaths’

With secondary goals for the rewrite as a whole being:

3) Make it deliver upon the theme of ‘you’re allied with a corrupt nation and it’s up to you to cleanse it from within’

4) Make it a standalone narrative by removing the option to side with Valla or Hoshido, and use that to place emphasis on Corrin valuing their established familial attachments a whole lot being an actual part of their character and not a choice that the player makes that manifests in a meaningful way solely through which route you end up going down

5) Cut out Valla entirely, since it only serves to get in the way of Hoshido and Nohr’s conflict if we’re not going make it a viable route (and even if we are, really)

6) Make Azura less of a narrative device and more of a character (even if to the player this appears only in retrospect)

 

On the other hand, I didn’t change/address some other things I had problems with.

As many people have pointed out and complained about, Hoshido and Nohr as entities are both heavily framed as “all that is good” and “all that is evil”. I’ve figured out why it probably ended up being like that but in the interest of not getting into an ideological fistfight on AO3 I’ll just leave it at ‘this isn’t just a problem with FE, and it’s present in way more recent RPGs than you might first guess’.

For the sake of them being an opposing nation you steamroll through for the sole purpose of offing your dad, though, they do just fine since the whole ‘conquering an innocent country’ does actually directly call into doubt the player’s actions. You could, in a hypothetical and idealized Conquest, certainly tone down the alleged purity of Hoshido from ‘saintly’ to ‘doesn’t commit war crimes for breakfast’ (which, credit where credit’s due, the North American release already did relative to the Japanese release), but in the long run it’s not something that would detract heavily from what my rewrite is trying to do since you’ve taken away the option of siding with the Obviously Good Country in the first place. If they did less to ignore the bad stuff Hoshido was capable of doing (or enabling, in the case of a lot of their sovereign states) it’d be an objective improvement, but ultimately it’s something that’s irrelevant to how this rewrite is setting out to improve Conquest.

 

I also won’t be touching supports (or even looking at them for characterization), given that they were written by a whole different group of people (wow, what could possibly go wrong?) and are ultimately irrelevant to the plot as a whole (which was probably not entirely unrelated to the ‘written by someone else’ thing).

 

Okay, now to get into the actual analysis/discussion. I’ll be spelling out what happens behind the scenes (read: what Azura’s been doing) and commenting as I go.

Just to reiterate: as a side effect and explicit benefit of taking away Hoshido as a viable route, it also places a whole lot more emphasis on the fact that Corrin as a character places a lot of value in their ties to the family that raised them. It takes it out of the hands of the player and makes it explicitly into a character trait. This means we’d basically have all the chapters up until where the route split would have been unchanged, because you give Corrin the whole ‘isn’t Hoshido so great, and also innocent’ tour and still have them turn around and commit to supporting the people who raised them. This in turn makes it make a whole lot more sense that Corrin sees Garon doing all this Obviously Evil Stuff and, like the rest of his siblings, isn’t immediately ready to kill him to restore all that is good in the world.

 

Given that the first real change I made was to remove Valla, Arkanos is now gone. Because of that, you’ve removed most of the reason why people outside of Hans/Iago are evil. This leaves Zombie Sumeragi, Goo Garon, and Avenger Takumi as major plot threads left untied, and, if you read the previous chapters you know how I went about doing that. Garon was easy because you could just make him evil for fun and profit (not unlike Hans/Iago). Despite what it may seem like, Fire Emblem hadn’t really done “evil for the lulz” at this point (remember, Heroes and Surtr hadn’t happened yet and even that seems like it’s subject to change now) and Garon having a ‘tragic backstory’ or ‘understandable fall to darkness’ or anything that serves to try to justify his actions would actively detract from the ‘we must conquer this country to kill our super evil dad’ by making said super evil dad less evil. _Perhaps_ he goes mad from the untimely demise of a favorite consort of his ( _maybe_ Azura’s mom?) or something and turns to a false (and imaginary) god to cope. This imaginary deity tells him to do the bad things, so he does the bad things. It’s ultimately not super important to the plot of this rewrite, because why he’s evil matters less in the context of Conquest than the fact that he’s evil.

Again, by now you know how I’ve resolved Zombie Sumeragi and Avenger Takumi: Azura has some vague kind of necromancy but she’s also really bad at it and things go wrong as a result.

 

The decision to make Azura more than just an exposition device by making her into some kind of antihero stemmed from the realization that she’s not totally passive _and_ that Corrin (and the player, probably) took everything she’d say at face value.

Azura, despite all her deference to Corrin in literally every route (which was probably solely because Corrin’s the player character), doesn’t hesitate to act on her own when everyone else is just sitting around waiting for things to happen. She was balls to the wall ready to kill Garon in that opera house when literally nobody in the army had enough of a spine to think “war crimes are bad, maybe we should do something to stop them” and then immediately demonstrated a surprising lack of concern over the safety of the rest of the dancers that Garon was having hunted down in order to find whoever it was who had the audacity to try to murder him in cold blood. She’s even less affected over killing all the Kitsune in Chapter 19, and her ‘oh, but we needed to do this or they would have killed us’ justification (to me, at least) felt more so Corrin wouldn’t shut down over having committed literal genocide than it was so she could sleep a little better that night.

Maybe it’s just because Fates did a very bad job of making her seem like an actual person with actual people emotions but Azura very much comes off as a character who just doesn’t care about things if they aren’t a part of a means to whichever end she’s pursuing. In Vanilla Conquest, this most obviously manifests in her varied attempts to convince Corrin and the rest of the Nohr Royals to join in on the ‘hey we should kill your dad because he’s a bad person/literal monster’ plan (and her assassination attempt, of course), and this rewrite just places more emphasis on that part of her character than on the ‘passive dream moe-moe-sad love interest’ garbage.

 

It’s important to note that in both Vanilla Conquest and this rewrite that Azura doesn’t disregard all lives, but that she also isn’t afraid to crack a few dozen eggs in her quest to create the perfect ‘Garon is dead’-flavored omelet. Her underlying motive throughout this Conquest rewrite is _solely_ to bring about an end to Garon’s reign of terror and she’s come to terms with the fact that there are going to be more than a few casualties along the way no matter what route she takes.

This is what makes her into an antihero. She played Corrin and the Nohr Royals like a fiddle in order to kill Garon for -as she sees it- the good of both Hoshido and Nohr and if the people who raised her and a bunch of innocent bystanders had to die along the way then she was willing (but not always emotionally ready, mind you) to make that sacrifice.

 

Given that not much would change from Corrin’s perspective outside of whenever it would be revealed that Azura has been pulling the strings (which realistically speaking would probably be revealed in the DLC maps that replace the “here’s why the Awakening kids are here lol” maps and all that, but I chose to implement it as an additional postcredits chapter), I’ll be presenting a summary of how the events of the game have changed primarily from Azura’s perspective.

 

 

Corrin is sent to the Hoshido border with Gunter and Felicia/Jakob and Hans, as per usual. Hans ‘kills’ Gunter to make an example in front of Corrin and he falls off the bridge, and Corrin discovers the dragon dimension and then gets promptly captured by Hoshido.

Offscreen, Lilith saves Gunter because they’re best friends forever and Lilith knows his death would make Corrin sad. I didn’t want to make it a running theme to go “well babby dimension exists so it’s okay” but given what we know about all the alternate dimension stuff she could conceivably drag him into a Dragonland/outrealm/astral plane that isn’t Valla as he’s falling, make him land in a pond or something else that's less than fatal, and have him get away with a few broken bones instead of a whole lot of being dead. He’s still heavily injured from the fall and revealing his survival would make things difficult for staying alive because Hans would try to finish the job, so he spends time recovering in secret, explaining his absence for most of the earlygame.

Then Corrin shows up in Hoshido and meets Azura. She (like everyone in Hoshido) knows Garon is bad news for all of Fatesland, and (like basically everyone in Hoshido) wouldn’t mind if he suddenly dropped dead under mysterious circumstances that couldn’t be traced back to them. As I’ve already established, Azura isn’t above trying that herself, so she begins to scheme.

 

Azura, at this point, knows she was kidnapped in retaliation to Corrin’s kidnapping, and while Hoshido was nice enough to her (Takumi’s #teenangst notwithstanding), it probably also stung that Garon didn’t try getting her back despite being her father. Unlike Corrin, who was raised as if they were Garon’s own child, Azura is fully aware she doesn’t ‘belong’ in Hoshido and has figured out all on her own that Nohr couldn’t care less if she showed up again. This feeling of statelessness is probably what made it easier for her to justify everything else she ended up doing (which is something they could have considered elaborating on in Vanilla Conquest, but since she doesn’t do much there it’s a nonconcern). **This places her 'allegiance' more to the nebulous concept of 'the greater good' and not to a specific country or individual.**

Right now, all Corrin is to her is a way of getting back into Nohr. She orchestrates a scenario where the currently overwhelming public trust against the avatar is shattered and they’re driven from the country; her plan is to using her kinda-necromancy to ‘revive’ Sumeragi to spook Corrin into turning into a dragon, which has them sent back to Nohr with her, a known princess of Nohr.

With chapter 5 playing out as normal, that means that Azura managed to accomplish all her goals (getting people like Takumi to violently reject Corrin, etc.), but everything else goes wrong in the process. As we all know, Azura loses control of Sumeragi (in-game this could be justified by his lingering anger over Corrin being involved in his death overpowering Azura’s grip on his revived-but-still-decaying body and that in turn reacting poorly with the Cool Sword that was given to Corrin by Garon) and, among other things, Mikoto and a bunch of innocent civilians die. Mikoto’s death ends up making it easier for her in the long run since now Corrin wouldn’t have to kill their mom when they invade Nohr, but Azura wasn’t planning that far ahead and this is where everything starts falling apart.

 

It’s worth reiterating that nobody knows this is what Azura is trying to do. She’s operating independently from everybody else, and, especially in this case, nobody would immediately suspect she’d cause Mikoto’s death given that she’s played the part of a good daughter and all that. Azura for her part also did genuinely love Mikoto as a mother and did not want to kill all those innocent bystanders, but as I said above she’s able to tell herself that she believes it’s something she was able to come to terms with.

She’s wasn’t able to come to terms with it, by the way. Things continued to go wrong and it continued to haunt her, driving her to hide her emotions under a mask of stoicism as she desperately tried to keep things from continuing to fall apart.

As we all know.

 

To further emphasize how much this has affected her (again, the extent of which you’d only fully understand with the context of already knowing how this ends), pre-Chapter 6 Azura could be notably more emotive than she is for the rest of the game. She could even have a different set of portraits for before and after Corrin leaves Hoshido, which would be more subtle of a detail than you might first think since it’s going to be a few more chapters before you see her again.

 

Because I’ve made Corrin in-universe value the family who raised him over the family he was born into, Chapter 6 has Corrin return to Nohr without any input from the player.

Azura saw this coming but isn’t able to follow because it would immediately raise suspicion towards being the culprit behind Mikoto’s death as a native of Nohr who knew she had been kidnapped on Mikoto’s behest, and someone who is known to have some level of magic power. She stays behind to try to smooth over things because, again, killing Mikoto was NOT part of the plan and she feels some level of guilt over it given that Hoshido was her home. As of right now, she had only planned to use Corrin to get into to Nohr while masking the fact that she was only there to kill Garon, but that’s not an option since fleeing would only cause Hoshido to immediately launch a full scale invasion to pursue the person they (rightfully, this time around) believe to be the one who killed The Queen Of All That Is Good.

 

Of note is that if Corrin ended up siding with Hoshido she’d just stay in Hoshido since an invasion of Nohr would be inevitable given people think Nohr killed their queen and it’d end in Garon dying either way. This doesn’t become relevant in-game since Corrin would always side with Nohr, but she _did_ have contingencies planned.

 

Azura staying in Hoshido ends up not helping her case, since she gets captured and nearly killed by Haitaka and his entourage because they (again, correctly this time) believe her to be the one who killed Mikoto, and only survives because Corrin just happens to be passing through that castle at the right time.

From then until they meet back up with Garon in chapter 13, Corrin spectacularly demonstrates to Azura that they just aren’t emotionally equipped to kill their dad, so she (as she planned) is going to have to be the one to end his miserable excuse for an existence. Before she gets the chance to they are both immediately sent to suppress the rebellion in Cheve, delaying Azura’s assassination of Garon to the next chapter. Cheve proceeds as usual and Azura feigns concern for the latest stepping stone in her getting closer to Garon. She pities their fate and feels bad that she was unable to prevent another Garon-induced tragedy, sure, but there was nothing she could do.

In the opera house, she uses some sort of magic song that harms Garon and only Garon. This rewrite has established she can (try) to use magic back in Chapter 5 and as this is a fantasy setting, I feel that’s enough of a precedent for her being able to use some other kind of magic. Of course, she fails, since (as Chapter 5’s massive oopsie demonstrated) she’s no mage and has a bad grasp on most of the magic she tries to do. Keep in mind that this is the first time Garon has let his guard down around her, and since she failed it’s not going to happen again.

In terms of how the Cool Dance Opera Cutscene itself plays out, she’ll use magic that has a similar (but not identical!) visual effect on Garon as the magic that she used on Zombie Sumeragi as a way to give perceptive players another clue towards her true role in the game (like Rudolf’s subtle smile when he hears of Alm retaking Zofia Castle; NOT like the whole Royal Sword thing).

 

So, knowing she can’t kill Garon herself (both due to her ineptitude and him now being on his guard), she needs to get someone else to do it.

Of course it’s going be Corrin, the only person who is naive enough to trust her unconditionally.

Basically everything she ends up saying in Chapter 15 is a flat out lie designed to get Corrin to stop seeing his father as a human being and start seeing him as a literal monster on the level of the figurative monster he is. She drags him to a Dragonland/outream/astral plane that has a crystal ball that lets anyone with the dragon vein powers have an image of their choice appear in it (regardless of if that image could ever exist in the first place), and by sheer happenstance Gunter is there and they bring him back along with the orb. Yay.

Once the two of them return from the outrealm, Azura shows Corrin an image of Garon on her orb powerpoint, and then shows the now fictitious Goo Garon and gives her speech about “he’s possessed, it’s terrible, I need you to help me kill him. Also don’t tell anyone.”

Corrin, like a schmuck, believes her. In Corrin’s defense, he has no reason to distrust Azura. Like in vanilla Fates, he didn’t have a lot of interaction with Garon prior to the events of the game, and was pretty put off by the whole ‘kill all who oppose me’ thing, and (as Gunther said in my new ending) it’s probably a whole lot easier to rationalize “my dad was replaced be an evil doppelganger: a theory” than it is to rationalize “turns out my beloved father is actually just a vile human being”.

Despite this fitting into Vanilla Conquest already, I’d like to point out that Corrin (and, again, the player) didn’t really have reason to doubt Azura’s claims, or even doubt that Goo Garon wasn’t his dad until she brought it up. In this rewrite, one way to go about emphasizing this even more would be to have Corrin say things along the lines of “I don’t believe it!” or “I can’t believe father would do this!” or “I can’t believe that father would allow you to do this, Hans!” whenever Evil Things happen. The shift in wording from “how could you” to “I can’t believe you” would serve to highlight Corrin’s naiveté while also establishing (but not at first glance) that he quite literally doesn’t want to believe his father is Evil.

 

Until endgame, not much else will change. The kitsune still all get killed, Zola takes everyone on a ruse cruise, Shura brings the ruse onto Nohr’s cruise, and all that fun stuff.

Ryoma, Hinoka, Takumi and Sakura will -when the script allows- make comments about your group sheltering Mikoto’s killer; they don’t know if it was you or Azura, but given that you’re in cahoots (as far as both you, the player and Corrin, and Hoshido knows) with each other there’s little doubt on their end that you are either condoning her assassination if it was Azura, or Mikoto’s killer in the flesh.

Chapter 23 (Vs. Takumi: Round 2) will proceed as normal as well. Takumi is mad because he is angry, is defeated, and refuses to be captured. Azura panics and tries to ’coerce’ him into calming down using the magic she doesn’t have a firm grasp on because it’d be easier to fight Hinoka and Ryoma if he isn’t dead and (surprise!) fails miserably. Takumi kills himself to spite Azura because he feels himself losing control of his dying body, and realizes that’s what happened to Sumeragi’s corpse, confirming his suspicions that Azura is the true killer.

Because her kinda-necromancy has already worked its way into his body, she hastily has it hide itself before they make their way down to the impact site to see him.

But you already knew that.

 

Of note is that Azura’s dialogue in Vanilla already sounds like somebody who wants Corrin to leave where Takumi hit the ground as soon as possible, which works out well for her since it creates the plausible deniability that Takumi may have survived and since Corrin didn’t find him they can just pretend he survived to get past Hinoka and Ryoma.

It doesn’t work because Corrin opens their mouth. Hinoka survives, Ryoma kills himself and somewhere along the way Azura loses track (and control) of Takumi because (surprise!) he’s Big Mad.

She understands this is bad but things are moving too fast for her to focus on him. Garon is both figuratively and literally right around the corner and he’s about to meet an untimely demise.

To foreshadow the throne turning any foreigner who sits on it to goo, Ryoma could shout, in his final blaze of glory, “The throne will never be yours!” in a deliberate attempt to provoke Garon into sitting on it (unknowingly going along with Azura’s plans). After Ryoma does the stabby-stabby, Garon makes a comment along the lines of ‘Looks like I’ll be taking the throne over your dead body’, and then they all move on.

Immediately after killing Hans and Iago, Azura focuses all of her strength into getting Garon to sit on the throne and for the first time in the history of forever she succeeds at something. Then they kill him, together, and everyone is happy for all of three minutes.

 

Avenger Takumi shows up and tries to get the drop on Azura (the camera angle suggests it’s Corrin, and Azura is vaguely able to sense Takumi’s presence because of her not-necromancy so she’s able to dodge in time). Gunter knocks Corrin out of the way (and doesn’t get shot in the process, both because killing someone off at the last moment without warning would be a lame plot twist and because the arrow was never meant to hit Corrin). This means we skip the whole “oops you died, have you tried to just stop being dead lol” scene since Takumi’s spirit would probably spill the beans on the whole ‘it’s Azura’s fault' thing and Takumi suddenly being at peace with Corrin existing and all the ‘you conquered my country’ stuff doesn’t (and didn’t) fit the context of the narrative.

All of Avenger Takumi’s dialogue becomes gender neutral (lots of “YOU”s and “MONSTER”s and “TRAITOR”s get thrown around) and by not using Corrin’s name the narrative is trying to, without the player realizing it, conceal the fact that shortly before his death he realized Azura was beyond the shadow of a doubt the person directly responsible for Mikoto’s death if not most of the casualties of war itself and that his anger towards Corrin -while probably still present in his ~spirit~- was overridden by his utter hatred towards Azura.

Azura’s song serves to weaken the grip her own runaway magic has on Takumi, but she ends up needing Corrin to finish the job. Avenger Takumi is put to rest, and the war ends.

 

Azura disappears as per usual after Takumi’s defeat but instead of because of some sort of Valla Shenanigans it’s because she’s now caused the death of over half the Hoshidan Royal family solely to orchestrate Garon’s death and if her role in it were to be discovered for real then she’d be in hot water. Also, she’s aware that “Garon was a literal monster” is a convenient lie that allows Hoshido and Nohr to be at peace quicker since he’s now a convenient scapegoat, and allows the Nohr siblings to be able to come to terms with killing their father better than they would if they knew they had actually killed their father and not just a monster posing as him. That part of this ending actually wasn't her trying to save her skin.

Xander gets crowned, Hinoka becomes queen, Corrin leaves the afterparty, there’s a touching scene with Azura’s force ghost all about how she hopes she could see Corrin again some day, she disappears, then the credits roll.

Then you’re given the option to save the game, and are returned to the title screen.

Saving the game changes the chapter title to something like “Final: Azura” or “A Final Betrayal” or perhaps even “One Last Tragedy” or something that carries the same general meaning. The reason why you’re allowed to save now is a quality of life feature because it’d be a total pain to have to play through all of chapter 26 and Endgame again just to see what was down the endings you didn’t go with.

 

If they were to implement a New Game+ system (mainly as a means of continuing to build up your My Castle, which I'd've liked), you could press a button on the ‘load save’ screen to convert this save file into a NG+ file, which you could then load as if it were a new save file. I have some ideas on how a NG+ could be handled, but this isn’t really a place I care to talk about them. If the player instead loads their save, they get to see what you just read.

The goals of my ending were to, in descending order of importance:

1) Provide closure to the story overall by revealing what Azura did

2) Provide closure to the story overall by showing how Corrin reacts not only to learning what she did, but also closure regarding Corrin’s understanding of their own role in everything that happened (which Vanilla Conquest did NOT do)

3) Not have Conquest bail on the 'Corrin's lose of innocence' plot at the last moment

4) Still include an ‘alignment choice’ for the player to replace of the one that used to be present at the route split

5) Have an alignment choice that has no ‘easy’/’right’ answer and does not cleanly fit into an actual Law/Neutral/Chaos or Good/Neutral/Evil alignment

6) Incorporate a few details exclusive to Revelations that were unrelated to Valla but made some parts of Conquest make more sense (ie. Gunter hating Garon with a passion which lead to Hans having a reason to kill him)

 

Goal 1, 2, and 6 are pretty self-explanatory.

Goal 4 and 5 was primarily to make an alignment choice that doesn’t do something that’s been done a million times before, and to pose a question that isn’t an easy “oh just pick neutral” situation. This isn’t specifically a manifestation of my dissatisfaction with how Fates handled its alignment question; I also play Shin Megami Tensei, a series that frequently uses alignment choices at a route split and I’ve lately been more than a little disappointed for how clear cut the ‘right choice’ has been since basically forever (it’s always Neutral or its equivalent ‘don’t change anything’ route if it’s an option, if you were wondering).

Repositioning the major choice from the beginning of the game to the end also serves to give players context for what their action may yield; in Vanilla Fates, you, the player, basically know nothing about the two groups you’re going to be siding with and have no attachment whatsoever to any of them on the first go around (Corrin, on the other hand, has way more reasons to go with Nohr). At the end of the game you’ve had 20+ chapters to get to know all these characters and have personally formed a relationship with them rather than your relationship to them being informed.

Goal 3 is just the logical conclusion to Corrin clearly being intended to be their own character and not just being a self-insert for the player to project on to. Corrin does not like hurting people, and Conquest’s ending makes them suddenly just… okay with all the bad stuff Garon forced them to do. Yes, six months have passed, and yes, it wasn't Corrin's idea do to the Bad Things, but Corrin’s values clearly ran deep and it makes no sense that they’ve had enough time to come to terms with what they had done even if they would be able to tell themself “my dad was a monster and he told me to do it”. This goal _isn’t_ to hurt Corrin, but my suspension of disbelief does not allow me to believe that Corrin could walk away from Conquest’s events as emotionally unaffected they ended up being.

If we ignore all the changes I’ve made for a moment, I do genuinely feel that that Corrin in Vanilla Conquest would not have been able to recover that quickly from what they had done. Conquest’s events should have broken Corrin in _some_ way, but they didn’t. I don’t care how resilient to trauma they’re suddenly supposed to be; it does not make for an interesting story and it does not make sense for a character who so clearly has a strong system of values to flat out not care that they had been forced to go against those values. Fates tried so desperately to have itself taken seriously, but this was by and large the biggest shortcoming of Conquest: the ending failed to follow through on anything except for “who will succeed Garon?” and “who will succeed Mikoto/Ryoma?”, two questions anyone could have made an educated guess at and arrived at the apparent correct answer on their own.

The scene that they had in and of itself wasn’t an inherently bad ending, but it did nothing to actually resolve the plot. Even a few offhanded remarks about how they got to that point or even just discussing how things have changed beyond ‘we’re not at each other’s throat now’ would actually serve to make an attempt to tie things up. There was plenty of room during the party to have characters say stuff like “Yukimura has been hard at work making automations to patch up the castle”, “We’ve granted Cheve and the Ice Tribe the right to secede, but they’ve chosen to give Nohr’s new ruler a chance first”, “Trade between Nohr and Hoshido hasn’t been better in generations!”, “The solider exchange program has done wonders for promoting peace between our nations”, and so on, but they didn’t. I probably could have even been satisfied with Corrin saying something like ‘A lot of bad things have happened, but we’ll eventually be able to move on’ to acknowledge “yeah I totally had to do some messed up stuff but I’m more than my trauma” since that at least would have been in character for someone so hopelessly optimistic.

Instead we get told “aside from Azura disappearing, everything is a-okay” and are expected to be satisfied with just getting that. If you were, good for you.

I wasn’t, and that might be why my ‘change as little as possible’ challenge manifested in me changing just the ending.

I won’t pretend that that was probably a ploy to get you to buy Rev and maybe even BR because god forbid they try to sell a game on its own merits and not use some cheap tricks to draw in and retain newcomers but for the purposes of this piece it’s less important why they did it and more important that it was what they did.

 

“But why? This completely changes the tone of the ending.”

Conquest stands out from Birthright and Revelations in that it’s not a happy story. The journey is continually an ordeal for Corrin and they suffer every step of the way. I’m willing to acknowledge that this ending is in some ways self-indulgent because there’s no way for someone to pretend to be objective when they’re touting their idea as ‘better’, but I do feel that at the very least this fits the tone of the rest of the game better than the one we got.

And even then, I went out of my way to leave room for Corrin to grow past how they were hurt. I’m not one to start claiming that characters ‘deserve’ things but on the flip side of “Corrin being totally fine is boring”, breaking Corrin beyond repair makes for a bad story and it’s not an ending that Corrin earned. They were put into tough situation after tough situation for reasons out of their control and had to make choices that weren’t easy but they did their best with the hand they were dealt and having the ending be a total downer does nothing but kick Corrin while they’re down. The journey Corrin takes on the path to recovery isn’t relevant to the story, but Corrin being given the opportunity to move on is.

 

With the first ending (Exile), I wanted to explore Fuga’s relationship as Sumeragi’s friend a tiny bit, and how that impacts his relationship with Corrin. Of the three endings, this one is the closest to a ‘non-ending’, given that Corrin is ultimately ignoring the root of the problems, but it still brings a close to the plot. I feel like of all of these endings this is the ‘happiest’ in the short term, given that it ends in Azura still alive and Corrin ‘moving on’, but it has the caveat of it being Corrin effectively running away from their problems. What would happen if word got out that Azura was being held by the Wind Tribe? What would happen if word got out that Corrin decided to give shelter (indirectly, at least) to Mikoto’s killer (and all the other Bad Things Azura was responsible for)? Would that end any better than putting her on trial? Would word ever get out about Azura in the first place? This ending doesn’t answer those questions because hiding Azura away was as conscious risk Corrin took; those are questions Corrin will have to worry about.

I wanted to use the second ending (Justice) to explore how Corrin’s siblings would react to learning that Garon was still their father, and how their relationship with Corrin would change (and not change) as a result. I specifically chose Camilla for that because her fans constantly tout her as a ‘loving, motherly figure’ and that manifested outside of supports in fewer meaningful ways than ‘daughter of a tyrant who is terrified of his wrath’ did (which, to be fair, was a bit more of a pressing matter in CQ when compared to RV). The “Corrin Gets Depression” part was (as you’ve hopefully figured out by now) as a result as Corrin’s inability to come to terms with the consequences of the most “lawful” choice they could make. This ending hits Corrin the hardest long-term, but above all else it serves to show that no matter how much Corrin feels they’re responsible for the events of Conquest, people are willing to give them the support they need.

The final ending (Judgement) was to create a ‘neutral’ ending that wasn’t without its fair share of drawbacks. In terms of the number of people it hurts it’s the ‘best’ option, but it places the greatest emotional burden on Corrin (and the player, if they had grown attached to Azura) in the short term when compared to the other two endings. I wanted to use this to explore the dynamic between Azura, Gunter, and Corrin a bit more, but given that most of Corrin’s feelings were already explored during the first two endings, I’m not sure how well it ended up being more than a comparison between Gunter and Azura. Of the three endings I feel this is the ‘true’ one (which may be by virtue of it being the closest to being some sort of middle ground between the other two options), but I also feel that with it I accomplished a ‘neutral’ ending that does not feel inherently morally better than the other endings. Perhaps having the player themselves kill the heroine is a cheap way to go about that, but I’m… content, I suppose, with how I tried to go about things with this ending.

 

I know that I’ve presented this as a rewrite, but I don’t feel like I can fairly frame it as an ‘improvement’ over the original ending. If we look at Conquest on its own, sure, I can claim that it ‘fits better’, but Conquest doesn’t exist in a vacuum; there are two more games that it exists alongside, and Conquest’s ending ‘works’ with those games despite not ‘working’ with Conquest itself. Conquest sets itself up as a tragedy; maybe not to the degree Echoes was up until Mila decided to resurrect a certain someone (lmao), but it’s a tragedy nonetheless and its ending should either follow through on that or demonstrate how it stops being one without just ignoring what it was up until that point. Conquest’s ending set out to do something different, but it nonetheless prioritized something that was still important to what Conquest was a part of.

I don’t resent it for that. It’s just, given that I prefer Conquest as a standalone piece, I don’t gain anything from it ending in that way.

And again, for the millionth time, that’s why you got this. I ignored most everything outside of Conquest and saw if I could make it work.

 

I’m treading out of metacommentary and into an obnoxious level of meta-metacommentary with this but the decision to allow the player to start a ‘New Game+’ without seeing the ending was deliberate on my part. It exists (aside from player convenience) to give the player the option to completely avoid the ending, to in some sense ‘reject’ the ‘truth’ on Corrin’s behalf. Any ending that completely recontextualizes the rest of the story in such a major way is bound to not sit well with some people (see also: Zero Time Dilemma, DRV3), and granting them the agency to willfully ignore an ending they don’t like is… really pretentious on the part of the creator, now that I’ve put any level of thought into it.

“You don’t like what I’m giving you? Here’s a button I made just so jerks like you can ignore it.”

Either way, I do like the idea of encouraging the player to consciously chose where they’re going to end the story. I’ve been trying to find the talk I had seen somewhere on the idea years ago, but I’m a strong advocate of the idea of being in control of how you define ‘beating’ or ‘being finished with’ a game, and this is probably a reflection of that more than it is something along the lines of “you’re lame for not liking the ending I made for you.”

 

These endings are meant to conclude Conquest’s story in a way that follows through on what Conquest was building up to, but they weren’t meant to make that something that was _fun_. I wanted to create an ending where they player (functioning under the assumption that they grew attached to Conquest’s characters) would feel as betrayed as Corrin was, while still making it something that doesn't feel like a cheap twist. It’s hard to make you, someone who was only able to read this ending and not able to experience the small bits of foreshadowing that would have been placed within the main story, be able to feel like someone who would have played through ‘this Conquest’ would, but I still feel like I made it… less out of the blue than it could have been.

An ending that is an affront to the player character should be an ending that acts as an affront to the players themselves, and at the very least, I feel I may have succeeded at making something that does that. I don't feel like that's much of an accomplishment, since it's not difficult to deface established and popular characters in a way that their fans wouldn't like, but I, in some sense of the word, succeeded at what I was trying to do with this.

 

I had some fun making this and as someone who was wanting Fates to be something that it ended up not being, using this as a way to sort through my thoughts on it has been pretty cathartic.

As always, thanks for sticking with this to the end.


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